Death Plane, Body Recovered Off Newport : Investigators, After Examining Craft, Find No Apparent Malfunction

Divers on Friday recovered the body of a student pilot and the fuselage of the airplane that carried him and two others to their deaths in the ocean off Newport Beach Sunday night. Investigators said it appeared that the plane had not malfunctioned.

“There is no evidence of any mechanical difficulties,” said Donald Llorente, senior investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. Llorente said the control panel showed that the plane had adequate fuel when it crashed less than 40 minutes after takeoff.

The body of Barry John King, 32, of Newport Beach was found strapped in the left seat of the plane. The bodies of the other victims recovered Thursday were identified as Phillip Burdette Peffley, 20, of Irvine and Benigno C. Villa, 38, of Costa Mesa.

Nearly Total Recovery

By 10 a.m. Friday, all of the major parts of the downed 1980 Piper Archer II had been recovered about a half-mile off the Newport Pier. But it took the salvage crew, cruising at a speed of about 1 m.p.h., more than three hours to tow the wreckage to the Harbor Patrol office to be examined.

The salvage crew recovered the plane’s fuselage and the left wing in the same general area beneath 58 feet of water; the right wing was found about 150 feet from the wreckage, according to Dave Miller, owner of Champion Air Salvage of Oceanside. The plane’s main landing gear and right front seat were recovered earlier this week.

Witnesses to the accident told investigators that the rented, single-engine plane was flying at a low altitude when its right wing clipped the water and sent the aircraft cartwheeling into the ocean about 11:15 p.m. Sunday.

Llorente said his investigation Friday “just confirms what we had stated all along. . . . It hit on its right wing” and cartwheeled to the left. He said the plane had been traveling in excess of 100 m.p.h.

‘Making a Right Turn’

Witnesses reported that the aircraft “had been flying low while making a right turn over the beach,” Llorente said. Regulations prohibit flying at altitudes lower than 1,000 feet over congested areas, and (the Newport Pier area) “would be considered a congested area,” Llorente said.

Investigators have ordered a print-out of the radar track to determine the various altitudes of the plane before it crashed.

Llorente said that investigators don’t know who was flying the plane, “but it is customary that the person on the left flies.” He said it is also customary that the instructor sit on the right-hand side of a dual-control plane.

X-rays of the victims’ hands have been ordered, which will help determine who piloted the craft, he said.

Peffley, a flight instructor for Aero Flight Center, a flight school and plane-rental company based at John Wayne Airport, earned his commercial pilot’s license at age 19. He received his instructor’s certificate last November, Llorente said. The owner of the four-seater plane, Lynn Rowbatham of Corona del Mar, said the aircraft “was perfectly maintained.”

Rowbatham, watching the wreckage as it was towed to the harbor Friday, said he had been leasing the $48,000 aircraft to Aero for only a month.

“It was a really good plane . . . one of the better planes around. I bought it about three years ago.”

Llorente said there “is no evidence that the engine was not capable of performance.” The wreckage was due to be taken to Long Beach Airport late Friday.